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Mavericks

For basketball fans, the NBA trade deadline is one of the most exciting days of the year. It&rsquo;s fun to track the rumors, react to trades and root for your favorite team to make moves.
However, for the players involved in these trades, it can be very stressful and emotional.
Most players spend deadline day looking over their shoulder, and there&rsquo;s a lot of anxiety and nerves around this time of year. There aren&rsquo;t many professions where your employer can ship you across the country without any notice, but that comes with being a professional athlete.
To get a sense of what it&rsquo;s like to be traded, Basketball News spoke to several former NBA players who opened up about getting dealt and what the process entailed.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtyqvPS02_Y&amp;t=2886s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RAY ALLEN</a>: &ldquo;When I got to Seattle, [here&rsquo;s] the way the trade went down. I was in Milwaukee playing for the Bucks and we flew to Seattle, and we had a practice that day. It was coming up on the trade deadline, and everyone was talking about Tim Thomas being traded. So we were on the Key Arena floor in Seattle and the media came rushing in. I'm sitting on the floor stretching and I'm looking around and as I turn [toward the media], all of these lights come on. And I'm like, 'What's happening? We're about to have practice.' And then I turn around and I'm like, 'What's going on?' And they're all looking and pointing at me. I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Me?!&rsquo; [The media members] are like, 'Yeah! You!' So we're stretching on one end and the other team is stretching on the other end, and [Bucks head coach] George Karl is down there on the other end. I kind of look around and I&rsquo;m looking up [at Coach Karl], and he takes off. So, I walk over to the media and said, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s going on?&rsquo; They were like, &lsquo;There was a trade.&rsquo; I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Who got traded?&rsquo; They were like, &lsquo;You.&rsquo; I go into the locker room and check my phone and it's blowing up. I got traded for Gary Payton. It was crazy to be traded to Seattle in the middle of the season. I go back [to Milwaukee], get my stuff, take my physical and fly back in. And my first game [as a Sonic] is against the Detroit Pistons.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I remember going out to lunch with Brent Barry, who was so great the whole time. He was such a jokester on the sly; he always had his little sarcasm that he'd add to any situation. He goes, 'Ray, just so you know, people aren't coming to the game to see you. They're coming to see the Barry brothers match-up.' Because Jon [Barry] was on Detroit. That was always Brett, with his dry humor. (Laughs) So, I'm watching the [Sonics'] film and Gary was &lsquo;The Glove&rsquo; &mdash; everybody knew how ferocious he was on defense. In Milwaukee, we had schemes, and I was used to that. But watching [the Sonics&rsquo;] film, Gary would come from one side of the floor and just start guarding a guy. And I was like, &lsquo;What scheme is that?&rsquo; And they were like, &lsquo;No, that&rsquo;s Gary&rsquo;s scheme.&rsquo; I noticed how the team was built around him, because a lot of the young players, they had kinda just waited on Gary to do whatever Gary did. So when I got there, Rashard [Lewis] was young and impressionable. We had Ansu Sesay, Reggie Evans, Jerome James and all of these young guys, and they all kinda just went as Gary went. So when I got there, I was like, 'Yo, get your shots up! I need you!' I was passing them the ball; I was flirting with triple-doubles like every other game. But I was like, 'You guys gotta [do something]!' They would just sit around, and I could tell the hole that Gary left &mdash; these guys were used to playing a certain way and kinda expecting him to do everything.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Rashard emerged because he started watching me come to the gym early every day and he would always say, 'Man, I want to make the money that you make and have the success that you've had. I really gotta start focusing in and taking this seriously&hellip;&rsquo; So, Rashard started getting to the gym early. He saw the work that I put in, and he saw that it was something that he could do and something he wanted for himself. I like to think that some of that money that he got from Orlando, he could have passed some of it [to me] on the side, but that didn&rsquo;t happen. (Laughs) But he was a great partner to have because he did get significantly better &mdash; so much better &mdash; from the time I got there to when we parted ways with him going to Orlando and me going to Boston. [I never talked to Coach Karl about him running away] and since then, George has always taken shots at me through the media or in writing his books. It's just the strangest thing because I always thought that we had a strong relationship as a player-coach.&rdquo;
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<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-news-etan-thomas-wpfw-dc-roundtable-drew-gooden-tony-massenburg-dave-zirin-john-wall-russell-westbrook-trade-washington-wizards-houston-rockets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ETAN THOMAS</a>: &ldquo;I have a story from when I was with the Wizards. I was in [general manager] Ernie Grunfeld&rsquo;s office. We&rsquo;re talking about me going to big-man camp because they used to send a big man down to Florida to IMG Academy to work out with Robert Parish and Clifford Ray. So I&rsquo;m in there in the summer, and I&rsquo;m talking to him about big-man camp. And I&rsquo;ve heard a little bit of trade rumors, I&rsquo;ve heard whispers and stuff like that, but nothing major. So he&rsquo;s telling me, 'Yeah, you&rsquo;re coming back from your injury, we&rsquo;re looking forward to next year. We want to send you down to big-man camp and you&rsquo;re doing all this stuff, and Robert Parish is great to work with and Clifford Ray is this, and we&rsquo;re looking forward to everything with you and we&rsquo;ll see how you and Brendan [Haywood] can work together,' and all this different stuff. It was this whole long speech, right?
"Now I&rsquo;m driving from the Verizon Center home to PG County. I&rsquo;m not even off Route 50 yet, and I get a call from my agent who says, 'You just got traded.' I was like, 'Are you serious?' I was like, 'No, that has to be a mistake! I was just in Ernie Grunfeld&rsquo;s office like 10-15 minutes ago!' So, I had to do a U-turn, go back to the Verizon Center, clear out all my stuff, and then he shook my hand and said, 'Thank you for everything,' like the whole conversation 15 minutes ago never happened."
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<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/heres-the-story-on-the-time-the-nuggets-traded-me-and-didnt-tell-me" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JAMES POSEY</a>: &ldquo;I was in my fourth season with the Denver Nuggets, and things hadn&rsquo;t really gotten off to the best start, to say the least. We were 6-18 and knew we were gonna have our hands full that night. Our opponent? The Dallas Mavericks. With Mike Finley, Steve Nash, Raef LaFrentz and Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas was no joke. They began the season 21-3, so in our morning shootaround, we were definitely engaged. Afterward, I showered and changed, went back home, took my pregame nap and was on my way back to the arena. I&rsquo;m driving and going over the gameplan in my head when I get a call from my agent. He said he was calling to 'check on me.' He asked me how I was doing and where I was. I thought the questions were a little strange, but didn&rsquo;t really think much of it. 'I&rsquo;m going to the arena, we got a game,' I said. 'You&rsquo;re going where?!' And that&rsquo;s how I found out I&rsquo;d been traded. We were both shocked, and for the same reason.
"Nobody communicated with me. I was literally a couple miles from the arena. Getting traded is a part of life as a professional athlete. And fortunately for me, I was young and, outside of the team, hadn&rsquo;t really had any family roots or ties to Denver. But that didn&rsquo;t completely remove the sting. I just considered myself lucky to not be in a situation where I also had to move a wife and three kids in the middle of the school year. Not every player is that fortunate. One minute, you&rsquo;re driving on the highway. The next minute, at a moment&rsquo;s notice, you have to start packing and prepare to make a new life in a new city. It&rsquo;s the hardest part of the job, and it&rsquo;s one that we all accept. But damn. When I got the news &mdash; again, I was literally five minutes from the arena and had done shootaround that morning with my teammates and coaches &mdash; I had mixed emotions. My initial reaction was just genuine shock, and even though resentment might be too strong of a word, I definitely felt some kind of way. 'They couldn't even tell me?'
"I can&rsquo;t speak for everybody, but I can definitely understand how being traded and not being told could make a player feel really disposable. Sometimes, people forget that players are people too. As far as I know, there&rsquo;s no specific rule about when you are no longer able to communicate with the coaching staff or the front office of a team that trades you, but in most instances, there would at least be a phone call or a text message from your old coach or GM or whoever. Just a, 'Thank you for your service, we wish you the best of luck,' something like that. From Denver, I got nothing. All those thoughts and feelings raced through my mind in the 30 seconds it took me to process everything and turn my car around. Then, naturally, I asked my agent the question everyone in my situation would ask. 'Where did I get traded to?' When he told me Houston, I perked up and immediately pressed the gas... I actually moved in with Nick Van Exel after the trade. He had a crib in Houston, so I stayed with him. When I found out about the trade, I just packed up as much of my clothes as I could and went to Nick&rsquo;s house. I stayed there until the end of the season, then I got my own spot. But yeah, if my agent hadn&rsquo;t called, I would've showed up at the arena and they probably wouldn't have even let me in.&rdquo;
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-news-etan-thomas-wpfw-dc-roundtable-drew-gooden-tony-massenburg-dave-zirin-john-wall-russell-westbrook-trade-washington-wizards-houston-rockets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DREW GOODEN</a>: &ldquo;I got drafted as the No. 4 pick in Memphis. Jerry West, it was his first year being the president of basketball operations for the Memphis Grizzlies, and I was his pick at No. 4, and I would say three or four months into that season, we were stockpiled at my position. We had Stromile Swift (who was drafted as the No. 2 pick two years prior to me), Pau Gasol (who was the No. 3 pick the year before my draft) and Shane Battier (who was the No. 6 or No. 7 pick that same year) and then the following year, they picked me at No. 4. So we had a lot of young talent, but we just could not put the pieces together to make something right. I heard the trade rumors. Rumors are rumors until they actually happen. It&rsquo;s funny, this story, because when I was hearing the rumors about me being traded, me and my agent had the discussion with Jerry West.
"Jerry West said, 'Drew, this is ridiculous, we have no intentions of trading you. Don&rsquo;t read the papers, you&rsquo;re going to be here a long time. So plan on wearing a Memphis jersey for a long time.' So I was like, 'Alright, that&rsquo;s cool; Jerry West gave me a straight-up answer, man! We&rsquo;ve got nothing to worry about! Let&rsquo;s just see what happens, man, let&rsquo;s ride this season out.' A day later,&nbsp;less than 24 hours later, I get a call from Dick Versace, who was an assistant general manager at the time saying, 'Drew, we&rsquo;ve got some news.' He said, 'You&rsquo;re on your way to the Orlando Magic; we just traded you for Mike Miller, the reigning Rookie of the Year.' And I was like, 'Wowww.' I was happy, don&rsquo;t get it wrong, I was happy that I was traded, but I was like, 'Wowww, Jerry West just told me that I was not going to get traded less than 24 hours ago, and then he has somebody else call me to tell me I was traded?!'"
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-rumors-tj-ford-james-posey-interview-qa-milwaukee-bucks-toronto-raptors-indiana-pacers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">T.J. FORD</a>: "The way I got traded, I felt it was just cold-blooded. Getting traded for the first time is just a unique experience. I got traded in the summer, I think after Hurricane Katrina and all that; it was when the Essence Festival was in Houston for the first time. Somebody bought my house and I was supposed to move out a week later, but they told me they wanted me out on Friday. Now, I've got an appearance in Milwaukee on Saturday that I'm supposed to fly to on Friday&hellip; So I get to Milwaukee and I speak at Michael Redd's camp, but he wasn't there. It was just a strange day. Who comes to somebody's campand then they ain't there? That just didn't make sense to me. [I&rsquo;m thinking], &lsquo;Gosh, something ain't right.&rsquo;
"I ended up having dinner plans with Skip [Robinson], the public relations guy. He helped me do a lot of great things in Milwaukee. We go to dinner and I didn't really have no power at my house, so at the restaurant I&rsquo;ve got my phone and my charger, but they&rsquo;re not next to me. Skip answered his phone and he's sitting directly across from me and I just hear him go, 'No! No! You've got to be kidding me.' Then, he's like, 'Here, the GM wants to talk to you.' So, I'm like, 'What's going on?' The GM's like, 'How do you feel about going to Toronto?' I'm like, 'What are you talking about? Stop playing with me. Stop fuckin' with me. Seriously, what's going on?' He's like, 'No, for real. We just traded you for Charlie Villanueva and it hasn't hit the news yet and it probably won't tonight.' I'm like, 'Yo, Skip, he just told me he f*ckin' traded me. He must be joking with me.' So, I handed him the phone. I get my phone and I've got a bunch of missed calls from my mom.
"So I called my mom and she's like, 'Your agent has been trying to call you! He's been saying something about a trade?' I was like, 'I know! The GM just told me that he traded me, so it must be a joke or something. I don't know. I'll call you right back.' I called my agent right away. But before I was able to do that, they got a TV at the bar in the restaurant. And, remember, the GM just told me that nobody knew about it. But it had just hit the news. Not ESPN, I'm talking about the local news at 10. I'm like, 'Ah man!' It was the worst day, man. Worst day. I was hurt. That was a tough one&hellip; I was fortunate to always get traded in the summertime. I probably would've been really shocked if I had to move midseason. I felt like I was pretty blessed to get traded in the summertime, when you can really process it."

Basketball News spoke to several former NBA players who opened up about getting dealt and what the trade process entailed.

NBA veterans open up about getting traded: 'It was the worst day'

You are now invited into the NBA rabbit hole you didn&rsquo;t know you needed.
Do you remember Deron Williams before he boxed Frank Gore? The Deron Williams before toiling away with his hometown Dallas Mavericks and ring-chasing with the Cleveland Cavaliers. The one before the New Jersey Nets moved to Brooklyn. The one that got you banned on forums because of how vociferously you may have argued that he was better or worse than Chris Paul.
Ten years ago today, on March 4, that dude dropped a franchise-record 57 points. Yeah, you&rsquo;re getting old too, son. (That's still a Nets record, by the way.)
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That game itself, otherwise, wasn&rsquo;t all that memorable. The Nets had about one month left as representatives of New Jersey before relocating to Brooklyn later that year. They, at 12-26, won 104-101 against a Charlotte Bobcats (!) team that dropped to 4-31 on the lockout-shortened season.
Starters in the game included other glorious names like Kris Humphries, who was second on the Nets with 11 points (and 13 rebounds) and played 40 minutes. DeShawn Stevenson finished with an 0-2-1-0-0 line and had one shot attempt in 29 minutes of play. Eduardo N&aacute;jera, DeSagana Diop (who started for Charlotte!) and Shelden Williams got some run, and Tyrus Thomas played about seven minutes.
Kemba Walker was still coming off the bench for D.J. Augustin. Corey Maggette was the game&rsquo;s second-highest scorer, finishing with 24 points on just 4-of-12 shooting, but converted 15-of-16 free-throw attempts.
Current Charlotte (Hornets) star LaMelo Ball was 10 years old.
But it was also one of Williams&rsquo; last awesome NBA moments while still in his prime, a career cut short due to... well, it depends on who you ask, and/or what you believe. It&rsquo;s either related to injuries, which we began seeing take a toll on Williams after the Nets moved to Brooklyn. Or other stuff, like constant clashes with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett during that infamous 2013-14 season together.
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Say what you want about Stephen A. Smith &mdash; and this was before he essentially became the face of ESPN &mdash; but I vividly recall him here in New York saying things like, &ldquo;Deron Williams has the easiest job a franchise player could ever hope to have!&rdquo; And, &ldquo;All he has to do is ball,&rdquo; as Williams, frankly, didn&rsquo;t.
There was also the story that Pierce once mocked Williams, saying, &ldquo;<a href="https://www.netsdaily.com/2015/7/11/8932649/farewell-to-all-that" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What&rsquo;s the matter now, Deron? Your ____ hurt</a>?&rdquo; (If I&rsquo;m blanking it and not even giving you a letter, just know it was raw.)
The Nets had Williams &mdash; generally hated by their fans to this day &mdash; Pierce, Garnett, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez as a championship-level starting-five (in theory) entering the 2013-14 season. And the head coach was a first-timer in Jason Kidd, who played an integral part on the underappreciated 54-win New York Knicks the season before as a player.
<a href="https://sicovers.com/featured/brooklyns-new-look-nets-who-wants-a-piece-of-them-2013-14-october-28-2013-sports-illustrated-cover.html">Remember that Sports Illustrated cover</a>? Ohhhhhh maaaaaaan.
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You may also recall the famous Jackie MacMullan <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/12690080/washington-wizards-paul-pierce-speaks-truth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">profile on Pierce</a> when he was a Washington Wizard in the early John Wall and Bradley Beal days. As far as we know, this was before Wall and Marcin Gortat <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wizards-insider/wp/2018/02/07/marcin-gortat-responds-to-john-walls-comments-whos-attacking-who/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wanted to box each other&rsquo;s heads off</a>.
&ldquo;Before I got there, I looked at Deron as an MVP candidate,&rdquo; Pierce <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/12690080/washington-wizards-paul-pierce-speaks-truth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said to MacMullan</a>. &ldquo;But I felt once we got there, that's not what he wanted to be. He just didn't want that.
&ldquo;I think a lot of the pressure got to him sometimes. This was his first time in the national spotlight. The media in Utah is not the same as the media in New York, so that can wear on some people. I think it really affected him.&rdquo;
After noting that Johnson is quiet and doesn&rsquo;t want much attention, Pierce continued.
&ldquo;There's a lot of secondary guys on that team. KG and I went there looking at them as the main guys who would push us, because we were advancing in years. But we ended up doing all the pushing,&rdquo; he said.
(Given what we&rsquo;ve learned, it&rsquo;s mildly surprising that Williams didn&rsquo;t <a href="https://twitter.com/BryanFonsecaNY/status/1472409021189857287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">just fight him</a> after seeing this, but anyway.)
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Williams remains one of the grand "what ifs" of this century. And let&rsquo;s be responsible &mdash; injuries are one of the driving reasons for his sudden downswing from stardom to shell over a... hmm... two-year span? But we do what-ifs with guys who battled injuries all the time: Penny Hardaway, Brandon Roy, Greg Oden, Grant Hill and Derrick Rose, to name a few.
With Williams, just visualize, given how the game was going &mdash; and where he had been trending at one point &mdash; where he would&rsquo;ve evolved to if the talent, health, discipline and mentality all added up. And it doesn&rsquo;t always come together, which is why it&rsquo;s not responsible to purely say &ldquo;talent wins&rdquo; if the implication that talent alone is enough for substantial success.
And he clearly worked hard.
Williams averaged 19.5 points and 10.2 assists from 2007 to 2012 on .460/.346/.827 shooting splits. He attempted four threes a game at a respectable level and nearly six free throws per contest during that span. He consistently was among the league leaders in assists, while simultaneously profiling as one of the NBA&rsquo;s best scoring point guards. His True Shooting percentage was at 56.8% during those five years, hitting 60% in '07-08 and never dropping below 56.6% until the Nets&rsquo; last year in New Jersey. (Understandable when Humphries is your second-best player for most of the season.)
We weren&rsquo;t letting &lsquo;em fly from three the way we are now, and Williams was, like most others, streaky &mdash; but you had to guard him out there. The 35% perimeter clip in his peak reflected the near 36% for his career. The assists came with some high turnover numbers &mdash; Williams averaged 3.5 turnovers per game in those five seasons &mdash; but that still gave him a near 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
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Williams wasn&rsquo;t a usage monster either &mdash; his rating was never higher than 25.8% until a 30.1% usage in 2011-12, but, again, <a href="https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NJN/2012.html">look at the roster</a>. Even so, he was eighth in the league in usage; otherwise, he never cracked the league&rsquo;s top-20. You know who did during that span? And on multiple occasions? Corey Maggette, Michael Beasley, Stephen Jackson, his then-teammate Brook Lopez and his former teammate Carlos Boozer. (Rashad McCants, Andrea Bargnani, Charlie Villanueva, Josh Smith, Rodney Stuckey and Jordan Crawford were in the top-20 as well during those days.)
Until the trade from Utah to New Jersey, Williams would be in the top-20 in VORP consistently too. Most hadn&rsquo;t yet cared about some of those metrics though.
And his strength was a big part of his game. Williams was built like Eric Gordon, had powerful crossovers like Baron Davis, a passing fluidity that neared Steve Nash, and an offensive creativity that rivaled CP3&rsquo;s &mdash; which is how all those damn fights started.
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Williams, in a lot of ways, was perfect for where the league was going. Surprisingly, he only made three All-Star teams, which were consecutive from 2010 to 2012; though, <a href="https://www.deseret.com/2009/2/12/20301620/all-star-snubs-continue-for-williams" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he had snub arguments in 2008 and 2009</a>, and <a href="https://nypost.com/2013/01/26/nets-wont-stir-pot-about-all-star-snub/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">again in 2013</a>.
It never came together, and everyone missed out because of it. Imagine if his prime stretched into a couple of those Brooklyn seasons... but don&rsquo;t imagine too hard because logistically, it would be a pain in the ass to lay out. But if he did ball out the way people on microphones, in forums and in his own locker room called for? Man.
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Williams would've been toe-to-toe in the mid-2010s against then-prime-entering stars such as James Harden, Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard. In his own conference, we might&rsquo;ve seen him in the playoffs go crossover-for-crossover with Kyrie Irving, or bump-for-bump with Kyle Lowry, or tough-finish-for-tough-finish with Wall. All of that while still mirroring a stat line of roughly 20 points and 10 assists per game on efficient shooting, further increasing his three-point and free-throw volume in the process.
That said, he did give us multiple All-NBA seasons and, again, a whole-ass fight with Gore. He says he&rsquo;s one-and-done, but that might be because none of you have offered him the Pierce one yet. And as silly as that sounds, you know you&rsquo;d watch.
But seriously, peak Williams was epic. If he continued along the path he had been, we don&rsquo;t know if it would&rsquo;ve brought the Nets a title &mdash; but they would&rsquo;ve been damn close.
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On the March 4 anniversary of Deron Williams' 57-point game, Bryan Fonseca looks back on his career and wonders: "What if?"

Deron Williams dropped 57 a decade ago... what could've been?

The Dominican Republic is a place that is mostly known as a hotbed for talent on the baseball diamond, and not the hardwood. However, its basketball talent pedigree, although not as credible as some of the other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, and lineage of players is still impressive.
Current NBA players such as Al Horford and Karl-Anthony Towns (whose mother was Dominican) -- and former NBA players like Francisco Garcia, Felipe Lopez and Charlie Villanueva, along with others -- are among the top talents the nation has produced. As we head into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, I recently took a deep dive into Chris Duarte of the Oregon Ducks, who will likely be the next player of Dominican descent to play in the NBA.
Hailing from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, then attending high school in Troy, New York and junior college in Niceville, Fla., and now the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Ore., Chris Duarte has not had the typical path of most NBA prospects.
To start, Duarte originally played baseball, and more specifically was a pitcher who threw 90-mile-per-hour fastballs. Of course, being a baseball player by trade is not atypical where he's from. Duarte didn&rsquo;t actually start taking basketball seriously until he was 13 years old, as he sought to emulate his older brother, Michael, whom he noticed had taken a liking to the sport. Despite a late introduction to the game, Chris's talent was apparent even in the early stages of his development.
Once he turned his focus exclusively to hoops, Duarte spent his adolescence dominating his peers in local tournaments, eventually progressing to larger and larger stages. Fortunately for all of the basketball world, Duarte&rsquo;s family moved to New York, in large part because they sought to help cultivate his basketball skills and abilities.&nbsp;
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Duarte attended Redemption Christian Academy in Troy for his junior and senior years of high school. He helped lead Redemption to an 8-8 record his junior year and 5-7 record his senior year, while playing a fairly rigorous national schedule featuring teams like Brewster Academy and Victory Rock Prep. On the grassroots scene, Duarte competed in the Nike EYBL (Elite Youth Basketball League) with the NY Lightning. He played a feature role in his lone AAU season with the club, playing alongside mid-to-high major talents like Aundre Hyatt (LSU), Nathan Mensah (San Diego State) and Isaac Kante (Hofstra). Over 18 games, Duarte posted 9.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game in just under 23 minutes per contest.&nbsp;
Upon his graduation from Redemption Christian Academy, Duarte was selected to play in the Jordan Brand&rsquo;s New York Regional Game. Separate from the more well-known and more prestigious All-American games that most people are familiar with, the regional game still featured a bounty of high-major talents, with guys like Jordan Nwora (Louisville), Collin Gillespie (Villanova), Darryl Morsell (Maryland), and Jose Alvarado (Georgia Tech). Duarte registered 18 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists for the &ldquo;City&rdquo; team in a 170-162 loss to the &ldquo;Suburban&rdquo; team.&nbsp;
A month after the Jordan Brand game, Duarte committed to Western Kentucky and joined Rick Stansbury&rsquo;s inaugural recruiting class. He enrolled there in June 2017, but never played a minute for the Hilltoppers. (The crown jewel of that recruiting class, Mitchell Robinson, also did not suit up for WKU).
Duarte failed to qualify academically and was faced with two options: sit out a full-year and try to gain eligibility for the 2018-2019 season, or play at the junior college level, where he could hit the floor right away. Duarte opted for the latter, joining well-known JUCO powerhouse Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, Fla.
At Northwest Florida, Duarte played a crucial role for head coach Steve DeMeo&rsquo;s Raiders in the 2017-18 season. Coming off the bench for all but one game, Duarte registered 12.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per contest, playing next to future Illinois Illini guard Andres Feliz. The NWF Raiders made it to the Elite Eight of the NJCAA National Championship, where they were upset by the No. 10 seed College of Southern Idaho Golden Eagles, 107-93. For his efforts on the season, Duarte was named First-Team All-Panhandle Conference.
Six games into his sophomore season, Duarte signed his letter of intent to play for the Oregon Ducks under Dana Altman. That year, Duarte was the unquestioned leader of the NWF team, starting all 33 games and leading the team in scoring at 19.3 points per game. With the help of fellow March Madness star Javion Hamlet (North Texas), the Raiders registered a 28-5 regular-season record and a No. 1 overall seed in the 2018-19 edition of the NJCAA National Championship bracket. Northwest Florida State again fell in the Elite Eight, to Ranger College (TX), 66-63. Duarte was named the NJCAA National Player of the Year and a First-Team All-American. 
&ldquo;Chris is everything a coach wants in a student-athlete," DeMeo, now an assistant coach at St. John&rsquo;s, said of Duarte on the team website. "He is a great student, great person and a very special basketball player. Chris has really set the bar high here at Northwest Florida for all of our future Raiders, and I look forward to watching him grow and develop at Oregon and even beyond college.&rdquo;
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In his first season with Oregon, Duarte immediately settled into a role as the wingman to four-year starter and All-American Payton Pritchard, who is now with the Boston Celtics. Duarte was the second leading scorer, averaging 12.9 points per game while starting all the games he appeared in for the Ducks. He registered three 20-point games on the season, including a 30-point, 11-rebound, and 8-steal eruption in a home win v.s USC.
For most of the final month of that regular season, Duarte battled through a right hand injury, and it was apparent, as his effectiveness dwindled. His points average dipped to 6.2, his field goal percentage plummeted to 30.2% and his three-point percentage slipped to 13.6%. However, his toughness and resilience remained evident consistently. He finally succumbed to his injury, undergoing surgery to repair a broken finger on his shooting hand on Feb. 27, 2020. Altman ruled him out for the Pac-12 Tournament before COVID wiped out the entirety of the NCAA postseason. The pandemic cancellation was especially hard on the Ducks, as they finished 24-7, were the regular-season conference champions and seemed poised to be a potential threat in the big dance.&nbsp;
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Duarte entered this current season with the spotlight more firmly on him, as he was the Ducks leading returning scorer. He was tasked with being the nucleus of a team, featuring four transfers in Eugene Omoruyi (Rutgers), LJ Figueroa (St. John&rsquo;s), Eric Williams Jr. (Duquesne), and Amauri Hardy (UNLV). To further complicate team chemistry, Will Richardson -- the longest-tenured Duck in the rotation -- underwent thumb surgery prior to Oregon&rsquo;s first game in December against Missouri.
Despite the challenges, Duarte was nothing short of sensational coming out of the gates, as he shouldered a massive scoring load while still excelling on the defensive end. He posted averages of 18.4 points, 2.5 steals and 2.2 assists per game while shooting 45.6% from three-point range. Oregon started the season with a 9-2 record, peaking at No. 17 in the polls in that time frame. The Duarte-led Ducks stormed through Pac-12 conference play, finishing 14-4 and narrowly capturing the regular-season conference title over USC.
Duarte finished the regular season with a strong average of 19.2 points per game, while shooting 52% from three-point range over his last five games.
&ldquo;The first time that I saw Chris Duarte was his junior year at Oregon. I thought he was a solid player. I noted that he had good size for a wing, played hard, was super competitive, and he could really shoot the ball," added Matt Babcock, BasketballNews.com's Lead NBA Draft Analyst. "My evaluation of him was certainly positive, but I can&rsquo;t say that I was overly confident that he was going to be a sure-fire NBA player.
"However, fast-forward to this season, and Duarte has played on such a high level all season long and has subsequently changed the narrative for me. I watched him play in person in early January this year, and he was incredible. From there, I watched film on him keenly, and I must say that I was left thoroughly impressed with him as a player. I expect some to be critical of his age, as he is older for a draft prospect, but I think he&rsquo;s worthy of being a first-round pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, regardless of his age.&rdquo;
Granted a first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament for their regular season performance, the Ducks demolished Arizona State in the quarterfinals by 18 points. In the semifinal game against Oregon State, the team got a nightmarish wake-up call, as the Beavers won by 11 in a wire-to-wire victory that was never in doubt. But this would not be the last we saw of Duarte and the Ducks.
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Altman&rsquo;s squad entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed, slated to play the No. 10 seed VCU Rams in the first round. Last weekend, over a year after he missed out on his first opportunity at a March Madness debut, Duarte was set to take the biggest stage in a matchup against another NBA prospect in Na&rsquo;Shon &ldquo;Bones&rdquo; Highland. His debut, however, would be delayed another 48 hours, as the Ducks&rsquo; first-round matchup was deemed a "no contest," as a COVID breakout ensued within the Rams&rsquo; locker room. The Ducks automatically advanced to the next round of the tournament.
In the second round, the Ducks headed towards a clash with Iowa and consensus All-American Luka Garza. In that game, Duarte wasted no time in making his presence felt, as he scored 23 points and dished out 7 assists against the Hawkeyes. Oregon ultimately ran away with the game, as the team ended the first half strongly and dominated Iowa in the second half.&nbsp;
Sunday night, Chris Duarte and the Oregon Ducks face the USC Trojans, a conference foe they are very familiar with -- and the team they barely edged out for the Pac-12 regular-season title. Another interesting element of this matchup is USC's star freshman, Evan Mobley, a likely top draft pick this summer. This should be a star-studded matchup, and we'll see if Chris Duarte can continue to elevate his stock and perhaps convince the general public to join Matt Babcock in considering him as a worthy first-round pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.

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